Closed testing went dry on 2026-08-01 when tags started publishing
straight to production instead of alpha — its testers have been pinned
to the last pre-access build since. Canaries now assign the same
versionCode to beta (open) AND alpha (closed) via play-upload.py's new
repeatable --also-track flag: both PUTs share one Play edit, so one
commit and one review cover both tracks and they can never disagree
about which canary is current. Tags still go to production only.
Main-push canaries now land on the open-testing track: public opt-in
link, no tester-list cap. Trade-off documented in the workflow header:
open testing goes through Google review (hours/days), where internal
was review-free (minutes). android-promote's from_track default follows
the canary to beta.